The public mind does not seem to have grasped the correct idea of evolution, and prejudice has blinded, to some extent, the judgment. The common opinion that man has descended from or is related by consanguinity to a monkey is silly and absurd. Science has never taught such folly, nor advanced any theory from which such a conclusion could be justly deduced. It would be a waste of time for me to offer to explain the doctrine of evolution to any one who does not already understand it from the literature of others on this subject. If he still nurse the idol of the identity of man and monkey, he must be too obtuse or too perverse to be reclaimed. But no one will deny the physical resemblance between man and the great apes, and it is this resemblance we seek to show rather than trace any relationship based upon theories. It is not a matter that concerns the purpose of this work, and we shall here dismiss the subject by saying, that things may be equivalent and yet not identical. CHAPTER II CAGED IN AN AFRICAN JUNGLE It may be of interest to the reader to know the manner in which I have pursued the study of monkeys in a state of nature, and the means employed to that end. I shall therefore give a brief outline of my life in a cage in the heart of an African jungle in order to watch those denizens of the forest, when free from all restraint. After devoting much time for several years to the study of the speech and habits of monkeys in captivity, I formulated a plan of going into their native haunts, to study them in a state of freedom. In the course of my labours up to that time, I had found out that monkeys of the highest physical type had also a higher type of speech than those of inferior kinds. In accord with this fact, it was logical to infer that the anthropoid apes, being next to man in the scale of nature, must have the faculty of speech developed in a corresponding degree. As the chief object of my studies was to learn the language of monkeys, the great apes appeared to be the best subjects for that purpose, so I turned my attention to them. The gorilla was said to be the most like man, and the chimpanzee next. There were none of the former in captivity, and but few of the latter, and they were kept under conditions that forbade all efforts to do anything in that line. As the gorilla and chimpanzee could both be found in the same section of tropical Africa, I selected that as the field of operation, and began to prepare for a journey there to carry out the task I had assumed. The part selected was along the equator, and south of it, about two degrees. The locality is infested with fevers, insects, serpents and wild beasts of divers kinds. To ignore such dangers would be folly, but there was no way to see these apes in their freedom, except to go and live among them.